One last escape to Melbourne

How can we decide to settle in Sydney if we haven’t even visited Melbourne beforehand? And my best friend Valerie was expecting us there! With these reasons in hand, we booked our tickets at a low-cost air-company and set up for the final step of our 2bumbleB Journey.

We arrived on a chilly, rainy and windy Tuesday evening via Avalon airport to the huge, modern train station of Melbourne CBD. A short tram-ride through a deserted city took us to a Victorian-style suburb where Valerie welcomed us with a hot cup of tea. She’d prepared a program for the week-end and some magazines and maps for our time in Melbourne City. It was such a nice feeling to know somebody like her in that part of the world! While we visited some of Victoria’s best places at day and night, we shared many thoughts together. I could talk with her for hours and hours to share travel experience and learn about the work conditions as she had experienced in Melbourne.


Thanks to her car, the famous surf spot Bell’s Beach near Torquay, the gorgeous wild beaches of the Surf Coast and the wonderful green hills of Mornington Peninsula weren’t that far from Melbourne. The ocean seemed to be a more powerful natural element than in Sydney. Those two days were a delicious journey in harmony with the time, the lovely weather and the Mozzies. These flies apparently don’t make any difference between cows and human: in Australia, when a fly catches you, it won’t let you go. Imagine what happens when there are many...

Listening to our mood of the day and with the excuse to be prepared for future sophisticated events, we spent a lot of shopping time in Melbourne. Victoria’s Market and its unexpected Delicatessen Stores plenty of yummy Greek and Italian specialities was the best location for us to start. I finally left the market with some new sunglasses, elegant shoes, an Indian scarf and juicy fruits in my bag. We met Val after work to share an ice cream that seemed the right compensation after a busy day for every one. That’s the day when Padi crossed the whole city with a large smile on his face, carrying proudly his 15kg mail box full of business clothes sent by his parents.

Perfectly dressed on Saturday 10 AM, the three of us were ready to leave the house for the traditional Caulfield Cup horse races. Val briefed us about the horses’ performance history in order to bet some money on the favourites. Our main interest, however, was to experience the OZ-way of such an event. I would describe it as ”to appear the most extravagant you can and get totally drunk before the last horse race finishes”. Unhappy to let them the money of our bad bet, Valerie and I yet were fascinated by those powerfully muscled horses. Only Padi felt a bit richer and smarter at the end of the day since he managed to triple his investment. Horse races are definitely “men’s business”.

We had a dinner with Sunny, the bloke we met a few months ago at Copacabana on Titicaca Lake in Bolivia. This happy guy did not loose any of his good energy on people. We had a very good time all together with plenty of Australian beers and wine. Besides, Sunny accepted to fill in a Statutory Declaration Form about my true relationship with Padi just one day before he left the country for another adventurous trip! His mission had been to convince us to stay in Melbourne. Well, he failed, but it’s not his fault. The strange taste of my weird “squid pizza” had probably more effects on life’s course. It had to be, and so we said goodbye to Sunny and Val and got back to Sydney.

Now we temporarily share a very well-located, new apartment with Korean people, and we are enjoying a beautiful swimming-pool on the rooftop, with views on Sydney Skyline and the Opera House. Our flatmates are extremely respectful and sometimes it is very embarrassing for us. The most intrigant is how their culture constrains them not to bother others, even in common living areas! I guess that Korean or Japanese demography forced them to find different ways of privacy on tiny space. And now that they are in Australia, they still maintain this regardless of our western culture. My most untactful act was for sure to wake up everybody early in the morning with a loud fire alarm, activated by the little bread’s smoke from the toaster!
There is no chance to ever teach them the western Chill Out’ lifestyle where all together share the same living room with a magnificent view onto the Botanical Gardens with fireworks at night. So even if our final challenge is not to settle up a Spanish Guesthouse, we do enjoy discovering new culture every day.

Click here to access our Melbourne Slideshow